Bridge of the GodsPacific Northwest Mythology

Multiple Columbia River peoples — including the Klickitat, Yakama, and Cascades — tell variations of a story in which the Creator built a great stone bridge across the Columbia River so the people could cross freely. The bridge was guarded by an old woman, Loowit, who kept a sacred fire at its center.

Two brothers — Pahto (or Klickitat) and Wy'east — both fell in love with Loowit. They fought a terrible war, hurling fire at each other, shaking the earth, and collapsing the bridge into the river. The Creator, angered by the destruction, transformed all three into mountains: Wy'east became Mount Hood. Pahto became Mount Adams. Loowit became Mount St. Helens — the most beautiful and most volatile of the three.

The collapsed bridge created the Cascades of the Columbia — a series of rapids that blocked navigation on the river until the construction of Bonneville Dam in the 1930s.

The modern Bridge of the Gods is a steel truss bridge crossing the Columbia River at Cascade Locks, Oregon. It sits approximately where the natural land bridge once stood. The bridge carries traffic between Oregon and Washington and serves as a landmark on the Pacific Crest Trail — through-hikers cross here to enter Washington on the final leg to Canada.

Mount Hood (11,250 ft) rises 40 miles to the south. Mount Adams (12,281 ft) stands 45 miles to the north. Mount St. Helens (8,363 ft since 1980) is visible 55 miles to the northwest. On a clear day, all three volcanoes are visible from the bridge.

Geological evidence confirms that a massive landslide — the Bonneville Landslide — dammed the Columbia River sometime between 1425 and 1450 CE. Approximately 14 square miles of the Table Mountain plateau collapsed into the river gorge, creating a natural dam that backed up the river for miles and eventually formed a land bridge before the river broke through.

The Cascades rapids that resulted from the landslide debris were a major feature of the river until Bonneville Dam submerged them in 1938. The oral traditions of the river peoples had been telling outsiders about the bridge and its collapse for generations before geologists confirmed the event.

The eruption of Mount St. Helens on May 18, 1980 — which killed 57 people and removed the top 1,300 feet of the volcano — powerfully echoed the oral traditions of Loowit's violent nature.